Angela Mason
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Cllr Angela Mason CBE |
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Angela Mason, speaking at the CHE conference, 2010
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| Director of Stonewall (1992–2002) Chairman of The Fawcett Society (since 2007) |
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| Preceded by | Tim Barnett |
| Succeeded by | Ben Summerskill |
| Camden Borough Councillor for Cantelowes | |
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Assumed office 6 May 2010 |
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| Preceded by | Benjamin Rawlings |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Angela Margaret Weir 9 August 1944 (age 72) High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | Labour |
| Spouse(s) |
William Mason (m. 1971–80) (divorced) |
| Domestic partner | Elizabeth Wilson |
| Children | 1 daughter |
| Education | Basingstoke High School |
| Alma mater | Bedford College, University of London London School of Economics |
| Occupation | politician |
Angela Margaret MasonCBE (born 9 August 1944) is a British civil servant and activist, and a former director of the UK-based lesbian, gay and bisexual lobbying organisation Stonewall. She is currently the Chair of the Fawcett Society, a UK women's rights campaigning organisation and a Labour Party councillor in Camden.
Born Angela Margaret Weir in High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, she grew up on the Isle of Sheppey and was educated at Basingstoke High School, Bedford College, University of London, and the London School of Economics. She was an early member of the Gay Liberation Front in the UK.
She was one of the Stoke Newington Eight charged with planting or sending bombs which aimed to maim or kill government Ministers, their families and Conservative Party officials. She was one of the four accused who was acquitted following a long and still controversial trial. Mason still refuses to discuss the trial in interviews today.
Mason was an activist in the trade union and radical movements.
Mason became a lecturer at the LSE then the Principal Solicitor for the London Borough of Camden. She became a member of gay rights organisation Stonewall in 1989, becoming its director in 1992.
From 2003 to 2007, she was the director of the UK government's Women and Equality Unit quango, now the Government Equalities Office, with her high salary attracting media attention. Mason has also been a member of the Equal Opportunities Commission and an advisor to the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. Controversially she used her position as a senior civil servant to oppose one measure of legislative equality for gay people – protections against discrimination in the delivery of public and commercial services – in 2005 and 2006. She was, however, unsuccessful and the measure was passed in the Equality Act 2006. She was awarded the OBE in 1999 and promoted to CBE in 2007.
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